"Never After Dark," a horror film directed by Dave Boyle, opens in cinemas this Friday and challenges genre conventions by using well-lit, daytime scenes rather than relying on darkness and shadows. Boyle intentionally subverts familiar haunted-house tropes by creating unexpected narrative turns and introducing an original belief system for the spiritual exorcism depicted in the film. The film follows a medium named Airi tasked with exorcising a house, with surprise plot developments integral to Boyle's creative vision.

An American director, Boyle filmed the project entirely in Japan with Japanese-speaking actors, building on relationships formed during his work on Netflix's "House of Ninjas." He worked closely with Japanese producer and actor Kento Kaku as his primary creative partner, with extensive collaborative script work conducted in Japanese to ensure authenticity. Boyle learned Japanese during a Mormon mission at 19 and has maintained long-term professional relationships with Japanese artists, approaching this project with deliberate cultural humility.